RANDOM MUSINGS

Some nights it just doesn't pay to go to bed. When I was in college, pulling an all-nighter was no big deal. Sometimes there was even studying involved - no really, once there was definite studying - books, reading, note taking - it was all very Hollywoodish.



In the Navy, all nighters were pretty standard fare. I flew as a crew member on a Douglas A-3 Skywarrior, I was young and stupid, and it was an adventure. My standard mission was from midnight to 6:00 am flying over what the Navy referred to as "extreme western South Vietnam". I know that lots of people believe that kids today are geographically challenged. Well this was the whole government that couldn't get it right. Let's just say that it was another country that rhymed with Taos.



When I got back to the States, I worked for the Armed Forces Police in Washington, DC (and no we weren't MP's or Shore Patrol, we were much higher up the food chain. That's my story and I'm sticking with it). And, you guessed it all-nighters, three days out of six.



Married with kids - all nighters. School Board meetings - only half the night, but it seemed like all night sometimes, especially during negotiations, So why am I up all night tonight? There are a number of reasons, none of them good.. waiting for an e-mail from a foreign customer that is very time sensitive, pressures of running a business and the likely winner, trying to keep up with the spam on our Discussion Forum.

After polling a number of people about how to keep the junk, we made some changes a few weeks ago. From the user point of view, it is almost completely without spam. From my point of view it still takes several hours a day to scan those who have registered and dump the spammers. We had one slip through tonight mostly because he had one semi-legitimate post early on, then a few questionable ones and tonight he was pushing prescription drugs, and now he's gone.

We're going to do whatever it takes to keep the Forum clean and useful. Please join us at http://www.graphicchemical.com/ and click on the Discussion Forum buttons at the bottom of the home page. I look forward to chatting with you.

IMPACT 5

We're just a few days away from leaving for Tallinn, Estonia for Impact 5, the usually European show comparable to Southern Graphics or Mid-America Print Council's shows. This year's IMPACT coincides with the Tallinn Print Triennial and will be held at the Kumu Museum in the capital city.

As usual, Graphic will have a contingent at the show, and somewhat unusually, there will be a pretty solid cadre of other suppliers at the show. I'm not sure how many of them are exhibiting this time but I know of several who will be supporting their distributors. It all makes for an exciting trip and an opportunity to meet with artists from Eastern Europe and give them a tase of the quality printmaking materials available from the West. It gives us an opportunity to find both distributors for our materials, and potential suppliers as well.

After the show, the group from Graphic will journey on to Lithuania to visit relatives (Susan's) and renew our acquaintances with a number of Lithuanian artists. Altogether we'll be gone for almost three weeks.

We are also calling on European distributors in Denmark, Germany, Holland, and Belgium, so there's a lot going on in a relatively short period.

We will be supported in Tallinn by our good friends at Caligo, manufacturers of the Caligo Safe-Wash inks. For the uninformed, Caligo Safe-Wash Inks are available in both Intaglio and Relief styles, and are oil based inks that wash up with soap and water. We are happy to provide samples to anyone who'd like to experiment with them - just let us know.

New Blog

After over two years of intermittent of posting on my Printmakers Materials Blog, I feel the need to branch out into a wider market. Who knows why, and more importantly who cares?

I have heard from some of you who thankfully have told me what I did wrong, but unfortunately, not how to fix it. I'll continue to muddle along trying to figure oput how to post a web address or an e-mail in the left hand column or how to put a picture in my bio.

I see this blog as more free form - out of the box thinking. I encourage you to comment on my ramblings, but keep it reasonably polite and clean. I'll try to do the same.